


Your Own Heroic Journey

by cmshaw



Category: Sky High (2005)
Genre: Abusive Parents, Dead Parents, M/M, Superhero Origin Stories, Teenagers, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-20
Updated: 2007-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 07:11:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1638290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cmshaw/pseuds/cmshaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All right, there probably would be heroes, but they would be very lonely.  Lonely heroes indeed!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Own Heroic Journey

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Livia Penn for the last-second beta!
> 
> Written for pie_is_good

 

 

* * *

Part One: September, 1977

* * *

Ron shuffled up to the bus stop. Steve was already there, and behind him he could hear Jonathan panting as he ran to join them. The bus wasn't in sight yet, but Jonathan believed in making the most of an opportunity (he always said cheerfully) and hanging out at the bus stop with hero-track kids like Steve and Ron was Jonathan's favorite opportunity of all.

"Hey, Ron!" Steve said, slapping him roughly on the shoulder. Ron rolled with the jolt up onto his heels reflexively -- he'd been Steve's friend for a while -- and tried to summon up a grin. "How was your summer?"

"We thought you might not be back in time for school to start!" Jonathan wheezed as he stumbled to a halt between them.

Ron shrugged. "Nah, the whole thing with the, y'know, the," he glanced around as a car turned up the next block, "you-know-whats was a bust. Mom and Dad just wanted to, um, sight-see for a while on the way back."

"Preeeeeetty cool," said Jonathan. "My dad never takes me off-pl--"

Ron elbowed him hard to shut him up and to knock him out of the way of Steve's much deadlier elbow. "Steve!" he hissed, and Steve winced and muttered, "Sorry."

"I mean," Jonathan said, "Off on exciting vacations. He says Mom can't handle it."

Ron and Steve exchanged a look over Jonathan's head. Jonathan's mother didn't have any powers at all; she was the younger sister of a lady traffic cop who had spent all of her time getting rescued by Green Light until they wound up having a torrid affair, getting kidnapped by aliens, being nearly sacrificed to a purple sun god, and breaking up with a spectacular screaming fight on the spaceship home. They almost certainly would have gotten back together again at the next rescue or three, but Green Light had been tragically run over by a villain with minions in monster trucks two months later. Jonathan's father, who had been Green Light's sidekick, had settled down into quiet matrimonial retirement and gone back to school to become an actuary. He hadn't been off-planet or even up in an airplane since Jonathan had been born. He put on a great barbecue, though, and Ron's parents sometimes went over for summer parties. Steve's parents usually found emergencies to handle, but Steve's dad was kind of an asshole, Ron thought. Steve didn't talk about it.

"Hey, there's the bus!" Jonathan said. He gave an excited hop that was just a little too fast, and Ron couldn't knock him out of the way of Steve's elbow but he could, at least, position himself to catch Jonathan before Steve knocked him flying.

"Sorry!" said Steve.

"Ow, sorry, ow," said Jonathan, rubbing his side and leaning on Ron.

"No using your powers outside of school!" Ron hissed. He didn't think anyone had seen, and really someone was more likely to notice Steve knocking people off their feet than they were to recognize Jonathan's half-second speed session as an actual power, but Steve could take care of himself. Jonathan was just a sidekick and heroes like Steve and Ron had to take care of him.

And on that sour note, the bus pulled up and they piled in.

There was a seat left open for him and Steve halfway down the bus, and Jonathan settled down in the seat behind them next to Becky (who ignored him soundly) and leaned awkwardly around the edge. "So how _was_ your summer?" he said.

Before Ron could say anything, Steve snorted and said, "No, seriously, off-planet! You must have your powers now, right? So what are they?"

"Did you get iron fists?" Jonathan said. "Iron fists would be so cool. Pow! Pow!" He punched the air.

Ron stared at his backpack in his lap and shook his head.

"Don't be an idiot," Steve said. "That's his mom's power from the toxic waste thingy. He's going to inherit from his dad and be a weapons master like all of the Wilsons. Right, Ron?"

"I guess," Ron said.

There was a pause. The bus rumbled around a corner and into the secret tunnel; the floor lights came up and were probably making everyone's faces look funny. Ron usually loved this part of the ride to school.

"What do you mean, you guess?" Steve said.

Ron shrugged.

"You mean you don't have any powers yet?" Jonathan said in a hoarse whisper.

Ron shrugged again.

"Ron, it's our _senior year_. You have to get powers!" Jonathan whispered.

"Shut up," Steve hissed.

Sunlight seemed to explode around them as they came out on the clifftop parking lot. "Welcome back to Sky High," hollered the bus driver. "Let the school year begin!"

Ron thumped his head miserably on the seat in front of him.

* * *

All of the seniors had an assembly in the auditorium first period. Ron watched the sophomores and juniors scatter for their classes enviously and tried not to wince when he saw the trembling little freshmen being lead into the gym for power placement. At the auditorium doors they split up, Jonathan going left with the sidekicks and Steve and Ron going right with the heroes. Jonathan waved. Steve grabbed Ron's arm.

"Ron, this is bad," he whispered. For once he wasn't gripping Ron's arm too hard, which was kind of scary; when Steve focussed like this, he was Being A Hero, and that meant he thought Ron was in danger.

Ron still had a little pride, though. "Come on," he said, and yanked himself free. "We can talk about this at lunch."

"Ron--" Steve said, but then he held up his hands. "Okay, okay, let's get seats."

Principal Powers was an old man who didn't even teleport himself onto the stage like Ron's dad said he used to twenty-five years ago. He still had a loud voice, though, and the dull roar of a roomful of students shushed itself quickly when he banged on the podium.

"Students of Sky High!" he said. "This is your final year of schooling with us!"

"Unless you fail again, Smitty," someone said from two rows back to a round of quiet sniggering, then a sudden thump and an "ow!"

"So now the question arises," Principal Powers said, "and it is, What next? What next indeed. Well, that is what we are going to try and discover with you this year. Heroes!" he said, and Steve and Ron straightened in their seats reflexively. "Look to your left!"

Ron did. That was Steve, there, and next to him Jerry and then Nanette.

"No, heroes," Principal Powers said, "farther to your left. All the way across this auditorium. Do you see the people over there? Those are our sidekicks. Those are _your_ sidekicks. Look back, sidekicks!"

Jonathan was probably waving again. Ron tried not to be embarrassed for him.

"Do you see these heroes, sidekicks? Let me tell you something. I know that there are some people in this school who think that we need to rename the Sidekick track. They think we should be using some beatnik titles like Side Heroes or Hero Auxiliaries." There was some noise at that, especially from the front rows of the sidekick section, and the principal thumped his hand on the podium again. "Let me say this! As long as there have been heroes in this world, there have been sidekicks. Heroes have always had sidekicks. And whether we call them, call _you_ , whether we call you sidekicks or whether we call you elephants, you too are students of Sky High and you too will be trained in the oldest heroic traditions!"

There was more noise, but this time it was allowed to go on a little longer. Ron nudged Steve. "Sounds like that Sidekick Liberation Front is getting serious, huh? Has Jonathan said anything to you about this?"

Steve scowled. "Why are we talking about sidekicks? It's our senior year! We need to be picking out names and costumes and all that."

"I think 'all that' is gonna include sidekicks," Ron said.

"I've been thinking Captain Something," Steve mused. "My dad's got the military theme going, see."

Principal Powers was pounding rhythmically on the podium now. "Heroes! Sidekicks!" he said. "This is the year when your separate paths come together again! Over the next month you will be evaluated and paired off on a trial basis. Now! Heroes, I want you to remember that this sidekick is going to be your responsibility. He or she is yours to protect, yours to train, yours to befriend in the most meaningful partnership of your young lives. This is a very serious time, and I hope you will afford it the gravity which it deserves."

"Man, this sounds like a royal pain in the butt," Steve muttered.

Shocked, Ron whispered back, "You don't _want_ a sidekick?"

"Oh, I don't know," Steve said. People around them were getting louder as Principal Powers stepped away from the podium to talk to one of the teachers that Ron didn't know. "I guess it's traditional."

"Sidekicks, your homeroom teachers will be giving your your hero trials schedule in the next few days. Heroes, we'll be pulling you out of class on an individual basis as sidekicks are matched to you and your powers. And now, students, let your senior year begin. Comets Away!" he cried, and stepped back smoothly. Ron had seen him teleport once, two years ago when the Roo Gang tried to break into the school, and he'd seen Principal Powers' daughter Girl Power teleport in to help; her teleport flash had been a lot brighter than his.

"Better to have power and lose it," he sighed.

"What?" Steve said. "Come on, we've got History next period. Jerry said it's modern dictators all month!"

"I'm coming, I'm coming," Ron said, trying not to trip over the seats.

* * *

It was a weird couple of days. Ron's classmates kept getting summoned out of class and slinking back in an hour or two later looking resigned or excited or embarrassed. Kids his own age -- classmates in the sidekick track -- clustered outside of his classroom doors, giggling and poking each other as they watched the hero-trackers strut through the doorway. Even guys like Steve who claimed not to care about having a sidekick took to talking loudly in the hallways about their powers. It was almost more important than finding a date for Homecoming.

Lori was the first of Ron's friends to get a sidekick. She showed up in the cafeteria on the second day trailed by a girl with big stylish glasses wearing a very tight sweater, and Steve wolf-whistled in appreciation. Fortunately he was out of hearing range, because Lori threw ice daggers and had a nasty temper about things like that.

"I wonder who that is," Ron said.

"That's Jenny," said Jonathan from behind them, and Ron and Steve turned around. Jonathan was beaming up at them in blissful defiance of Steve's three-year-running attempt to ban him from socializing with them at lunchtime. "She makes things change colors."

"Is she Lori's new sidekick?" Ron asked.

Steve leered. "Maybe they're dating?"

"Just because Lori turned you down," Ron said, and Jonathan laughed.

"Jenny's _really_ popular with the boys," he said.

"I wonder how they matched them up. Ice and colors? That's weird," Steve said.

"Oh, they don't usually care about sidekicks' powers," Jonathan said, oblivious to Ron's and Steve's shock. Not care about their _powers_? "Jenny's got really good grades in Battle Backup, and I guess they figured a hero with an offense power would be fighting a lot."

"Weird," Steve said. "Come on, Ron, let's get some mystery meat and sit down."

Jonathan snagged Ron's sleeve. "Hey, hang on a sec, Ron." Steve looked at him and Ron waved him toward the food line. Jonathan watched him go and then leaned in. "Can I talk to you after school? I had to run home yesterday but I really want to."

"Yeah, sure," Ron said. "Something wrong? Nobody's bullying you this year, are they?"

"No, no," Jonathan said. "It's, um. Can I talk to you later?"

"Yeah," Ron said again, and Jonathan looked for a second like he was about to give Ron a hug or something. Instead he hopped back a couple of steps and dashed over to the cluster of sidekicks waiting by the windows.

"What was all that about?" Steve asked when Ron cut the line to join him.

Ron looked back over his shoulder; the sidekicks were still watching them, Jonathan in their midst. "I dunno," he said.

* * *

That afternoon, Ron waved to Steve at the bus stop and turned the other way down the street to walk with Jonathan. Jonathan seemed pretty nervous, and he kept glancing at Ron and then away again like he was about to say something.

Ron's house was right on the corner, and Jonathan's was two more blocks down. As they passed Ron's house, though, his dad came out on the front steps and waved him in. Jonathan looked bereft.

"Look, I'll call you later, okay?" Ron said.

"Okay, sure," Jonathan said. "That'd be great. I'll be home." He stood and watched Ron walk up his front walk.

"Who's that?" his dad demanded.

"It's--" Ron began.

"Is that Green Light's old sidekick's boy? Is he still hanging around you?"

"Yeah--"

"Well, this is just you and me, son. Leave the sidekicks out of this." His dad turned and walked back inside and Ron followed with a final wave to Jonathan.

"Dad?" Ron called.

"In the back," his dad answered.

The back. Ron swallowed. That was his parents' "dance studio", only he was sure that today the fake walls would be turned around. He stopped in the doorway and bobbed an automatic bow, then put his arms up as something flew toward his face -- a sword, fortunately hilt-first. The pommel hit his wrist and he managed to catch it as it fell.

"En garde," his dad said, and Ron tossed his backpack behind him and swung the sword up. His stance was good, at least.

"Where's Mom?" he asked.

"Leave your mother out of this," his dad growled, swinging his own sword in easy arcs. "I told you, this is father and son time. Wilson time. We can't mollycoddle you any more, son. This is it." He cut toward Ron's side.

Ron got a block up, but his dad's sword flashed up and around -- Ron saw it, but he couldn't do anything but close his eyes --

The flat of the sword slapped him across the side of his face and, from the stinging in his ear, probably drew a little blood. "Fight!" his dad yelled.

"I'm trying!" Ron yelled back. Cut and his dad parried. Cut and deflected. Lunge and deflected. His dad's next parry actually drove Ron back a step and, with a twist, nicked his shoulder and drew more blood. Frustration made Ron's next swing go wide and his dad's block hit the blade so hard that it stung his hand. "Dammit!" Ron said, trying to -- no, too late, his dad's sword was twisting around and knocking Ron's sword right out of his loosened grip. He wasn't even fighting strongly for someone without powers, and for a Wilson he might as well be beating himself over the head with a rock.

His dad reached back and threw a quarterstaff at him, kicking Ron's sword aside with shocking disregard. "It's in your blood! It has to be!" Now he was on the attack and Ron was frantically blocking, the polished wood of the staff in his hands chipping away with every near escape. His hands were numb almost immediately and the staff shook in his grip with each blow of his dad's that he blocked. "You have! to have! powers!"

For a long moment Ron didn't know why they weren't moving. Then, when he started to twist to the side and instead his hands spasmed and sent the staff flying, he saw his dad's face. The last thing he noticed was the pain in his chest.

* * *

Ron woke up with a shout to find his dad pouring something burning across his chest.

"Take it easy," his dad said. He looked tight around the eyes, but no more than he might if there was word coming about a swarm of killer bees or something. Ron wondered if he'd been imagining the awful expression just before he'd passed out.

"What happened?" he said, wincing away from the sight of the blood splattered across his skin. It hurt a little less if he didn't look, and Ron breathed carefully in and out through his mouth.

"Nothing happened," his dad said. "Nothing at all. You lasted forty-three seconds against me."

"You stabbed me," Ron said. "Dad. You _stabbed_ me."

"You didn't stop me," his dad said. He slapped a gauze pad roughly over the bloody area of Ron's chest and started wrapping bandages around him. "You were supposed to stop me. You were supposed to have powers and stop me."

"Ow," Ron said. "Ow, ow, ow."

"Lift your arms," his dad said. "Five generations. Five generations of Wilson men with the same powers, son. I don't understand what I did wrong."

"I'm sorry," Ron said. He poked experimentally at the bandages. It still hurt like hell, but he didn't seem in any danger of bleeding through. "I'm sorry, Dad," he said again, forcing the words through the tightness in his throat. "I've _tried_. I just pick up the weapons and nothing happens."

His dad started rerolling the rest of the bandages. "What are we going to do if you're not a hero, son?" he said. "Who's going to carry on the Wilson name?"

"Dad, I'm not--" dead, he wanted to say. I'm not dead. But he remembered his dad's face and the sword extended with the tip pushing in towards his heart and added: yet.

"You haven't got a whole lot of time left," his dad said. "This is your final year of training."

"It's just high school," Ron said weakly.

His dad frowned. "It's _the_ school. It's Sky High. If you don't come out of Sky High a hero, you might as well not bother at all these days. You have to do better."

"I get 'A's," Ron said.

"You need to get _powers_!"

Ron pushed himself up off the floor awkwardly, trying to move without starting to bleed again. "I have homework, Dad." For a moment he thought his dad was going to keep at him, but then he scowled and waved Ron away. Ron shuffled across the mat to retrieve his backpack; picking it up caused a small burst of pain across his wound, but he kept shuffling down the hall and into his bedroom. His dad had cut away his teeshirt, but there was blood on his trousers. He stripped them off and left them crumpled on the floor while he flopped carefully onto his bed and stared at the ceiling.

He didn't have any powers.

He wasn't really a hero.

And now he could hear his mom downstairs, and she was arguing with his dad again. Probably about him; it usually was. He grabbed his pillow and covered his head so he couldn't hear them, but his window was open and his bedroom was right over the living room, and didn't they know that anyone walking up to the front door might overhear them?

"It has to be the radiation--" his dad was saying.

"Maybe the famous Wilson blood has finally run too thin--" said his mom.

"For five generations--"

"Nothing's keeping _my_ powers from passing along except a poor host--"

"It just takes a little jolt to waken--"

"Can't do anything with him if he's _dead_ \--"

"Shut up," Ron said into his mattress. "Shut up, shut up, shut up." He got up and pulled a clean shirt and pair of pants out of his dresser, but his shoes got caught in the leg of the pants because he hadn't bothered to take them off first, and he felt, heavily, on his ass beside his bed. Pain ran up his side and exploded in the back of his head, and he sat there with his pants half-on and bit his lip. He could still hear his parents arguing downstairs.

After a minute he could look down and see that there was no fresh blood on the bandages -- it really hadn't been a deep wound at all; his dad was too good to kill him in a training accident. It would just be one more scar to show where he'd been too slow a learner, that's all. Not like he didn't have plenty of those. He worked his pants over his shoes, stood up, and hauled them all the way up. Then he put on his shirt, slung his backpack over the shoulder farthest from the cut, and snuck down the back stairway and out the studio door. He could be at Jonathan's house in four minutes.

* * *

Jonathan's mother let him in and sent him upstairs with a smile and a couple of soda pops. He paused in the doorway to Jonathan's bedroom to listen to the rock music on his stereo and watch Jonathan bop around his room, half dancing and half shadowboxing with an imaginary villain who had probably underestimated the feisty little sidekick -- most did, if you counted high school bullies as villains. Jonathan's half-second speed power could make a punch pack quite a wallop.

"Looks like you don't need a hero here," he said eventually. Jonathan looked like he could go on all afternoon, and while Ron wouldn't've minded watching him he did want to sit down and take the heavy backpack off of his shoulder.

"Ron!" Jonathan said, spinning around. His cheeks went red. "Um! Hi. Wanna come in?"

Ron handed Jonathan the soda pops and sat down on the edge of the bed, dropping his backpack at the foot of it next to Jonathan's. "Hey," he said. "So what was up at school today?"

Jonathan went even redder. He set the bottles on his desk, stuck his head out of the door, looked up and down the hallway, and then closed it before sitting down next to Ron. Then he jumped up, opened his soda pop, put it down, and sat in his desk chair. "So, um," he said.

Ron waited.

Jonathan fiddled with the bottle cap.

"So?" Ron said.

"So they're matching sidekicks up to heroes already," Jonathan said. Ron nodded. "Do, do the heroes get any say in, like, which sidekick they get?" Jonathan stared down at his hands as he talked.

"I don't know," Ron said, startled. "I guess, maybe? I could ask Lori how it worked for her."

"If they do," Jonathan said, and stopped again.

The blush was all the way to the tips of his ears now, and Ron almost wanted to tease him about it, but only almost. He rubbed his palms against the quilt on Jonathan's bed and said, "Someone you want to ask for in particular?" He swallowed and wished he hadn't left his soda pop on the other side of the room. "Worried that they're planning to give you to one of the assholes like Barron?" he asked with a laugh.

"You," Jonathan said. "I want to be -- would you be my hero, Ron?" He looked up at last, his face red but still dead serious.

Somehow it had completely escaped Ron that if he was hero tracked and Jonathan was sidekick tracked, they matched up that way. "I, you, what?" he said wittily.

Jonathan looked back down. "It's okay if you've picked out someone else! I just thought, you know, we hang out together sometimes, it might be a good, you know, basis for a strong hero-sidekick relationship, but there are lots of sidekicks who'd be great for you!"

"Whoa, whoa," Ron said. "That's not what I meant! It's just, I never thought of us that way, that's all. I mean, as a hero and a sidekick," except of course for all the ways he always did, looking out for Jonathan and taking charge of him. "I mean, formally," he said weakly. "I'm sure you're an awesome sidekick, Jonathan."

Now Jonathan bounced out of his seat and onto the bed next to Ron. "So we could try it? You could tell the guidance counselor about us, say we've worked together before. I'm sure we'd make a swell team!"

If he could be anyone's hero, he wanted to be his friend's, but that was a pretty big 'if' right now. "Jonathan," Ron started.

"Thank you!" Jonathan said, and threw his arms around Ron.

"Er," Ron said. Jonathan was hugging him from the side, so he couldn't really get an arm free to hug back, only kind of lean the side of his head against Jonathan's forehead. Then Jonathan's elbow dug into his cut; he'd forgotten about it and didn't manage to not wince.

"What's -- hey," Jonathan said, running his hand around the outline of the bandage under Ron's shirt. "What's this?"

Ron shook his head. "Just a little training accident," he said. "It's a bit sore, that's all."

"Let me see," Jonathan said. "No, seriously, if I'm your sidekick I need to know how to stitch you up."

"It didn't need stitches," Ron said, rolling his eyes, although it probably would have benefitted from a few. He expected it to be a pretty ragged little scar. Jonathan was still kneeling there hopefully, though, so he decided to indulge him. Pulling his shirt over his head made him wince again as the skin pulled.

"You should wear button-downs," Jonathan said.

Ron yanked the shirt off of his head and smoothed his hair down. "What?"

"When you're hurt," Jonathan said, sounding distracted. "So it's easier to take off. Oh my God." He reached out and traced the fresh bandage across Ron's chest, then brushed his fingers over some of the older marks. "I guess I'd seen you with bruises before when you came over to use our pool, but this is -- wow. Hero stuff, huh?" He sounded halfway between impressed and scared to death.

"Well, you know, combat training," Ron said, wishing he'd kept his shirt on now.

Jonathan swallowed. "Even without powers?"

"I'll probably heal faster once I get them," he said. "My parents do, especially Mom." The words came out easily, reflexively. He grabbed Jonathan's hand and lifted it away from his chest. "If I get them, I mean."

Jonathan frowned at him. " _When_ ," he said.

"What if I don't?" Ron said. "Ever. What if I'm just not a hero?"

Jonathan held on tightly to Ron's hand. "Ron, come on. Of course you're a hero. You're going to be one of the best. No," he said when Ron tried to pull his hand away, and he wrapped his other hand around Ron's as well. "No, look, who's the sidekick here? I'm trained in stuff like Hero Recognition and you, Ron, are definitely a hero."

"Yeah?" Ron said.

"Yeah," Jonathan said. "Absolutely."

Ron squeezed Jonathan's hands. "Thanks, Jonathan." He even smiled. "Thanks."

They sat there for a minute until Jonathan cleared his throat and said, "So, um, would you ask? At school?"

"Okay," Ron said. "Can I put my shirt back on now?"

Jonathan's face got red again. "Oh, yeah, sure. Um. Let me help."

"I've got it," Ron said, "really."

"Nope, nope," Jonathan said. He tugged the shirt out of Ron's hands and threaded it over his arms. "You've gotta let me do this stuff now. Will you have armor?"

"Shining armor, even," Ron said. He ducked his head to let Jonathan ease the neck of the shirt on. It bunched around his shoulders and Jonathan pulled it down evenly and gently so that it didn't catch on the bandages.

Jonathan grinned. "Ooh, with buckles? And will I have to polish it?" His hands were still smoothing down the sides of Ron's shirt, even though it was as smooth as it was going to get. It should have felt ticklish, but it didn't; he wondered if sidekicks were trained in massage. A nice shoulder-rub would be a great way to end a day spent adventuring, he thought.

"Polished, oiled, and ready to go at all times," Ron said. "They teach you that, right?"

"Just the basics," Jonathan said. "You'll have to show me exactly how you like it." His hands were still sliding up and down Ron's sides, and his voice was rough and weird.

"Jonathan?" Ron asked, twisting around to look at him.

Jonathan didn't back up, so they were inches apart. His eyes looked huge and dark from this angle, or maybe it was the light. Ron swallowed. "How do you like it?" Jonathan said.

One of Jonathan's hands was on Ron's stomach now, just pressing lightly instead of stroking. Ron swallowed again and said, "You mean, armor?"

"No, I mean jerking off," Jonathan said, and he was leaning even a little closer now. "How do you like jerking off?"

That's what that funny feeling was, Ron realized: it was Jonathan's hand being inches away from Ron's typical mid-afternoon hard-on, the one that was maybe a lot harder than usual this afternoon. He thought about watching Jonathan dancing and tried to remember if Jonathan's pants had been tenting at all. Jonathan was expecting him to say something, wasn't he? Something about what he liked. "It's nice," he said vaguely, which seemed to be good enough; now Jonathan was grinning.

"Let's do it," he said, "come on, to celebrate," and he was unbuttoning Ron's pants, which any moment now was going to be really bizarre and awkward and fucking awesome because Jonathan's hand was in his pants and that was the best thing he'd ever felt, better than his own hand in his pants, better than his hands up Katie Baxter's blouse, better than anything on any planet he'd ever been to, even if it did only last about five seconds before he shot his wad off right into Jonathan's palm.

"Oh wow," he said, and fell over, too impressed by Jonathan's hand to be embarrassed about anything, even taking only five seconds. He'd meant to flop on his back across Jonathan's bed but he'd forgotten than Jonathan was still mostly behind him; he wound up knocking Jonathan over too, and Jonathan's hand went flying out the side and left a gooey smear across the quilt. "Sorry!" he said, trying to work up the energy to help clean up, or at least roll a little so that he wasn't crushing Jonathan.

Jonathan made a noise -- he was laughing. Not at Ron, Ron figured, and when Jonathan wiggled out from underneath him and he could see his face he was sure of it. "Dynamite!" he said breathlessly. Ron kind of had to agree. "Now me, now me," Jonathan said, tugging one-handed at his own trousers. He stuck his hand in and brought it back out with his prick in his fist, and fair was fair so Ron reached over and grabbed it. It was a lot easier to tug on it from this angle, but Jonathan grabbed his forearm and panted, "Not so hard!" When he eased up a bit, Jonathan made a funny whining noise and humped up, twice, and then he was --

Okay, now it was weird and sticky and his pants were open and he had Jonathan's stuff on his _hand_. And he was lying on his side on Jonathan's bed (with his pants open and his hand sticky) and Jonathan wouldn't stop grinning. "Do they train you -- no, hang on," Ron said, brain kicking in at last, "don't they train you _not_ to do that to your hero?"

"Er," Jonathan said. He blinked a couple of times. "Well. Kinda?"

"We're definitely taught no to sidekicks," Ron said.

Jonathan muttered something that sounded like "big surprise", but then he said, louder, "I'm sorry. I won't do it again."

He looked so hangdog that Ron was ashamed. "I'm not mad," he said.

"Really? You're sure?" Jonathan said. "You -- wait, you didn't pull any stitches, did you?"

"I told you, I didn't need stitches," Ron said. "No, it's fine."

Jonathan sat up and fumbled with the fly on his pants, but it was apparently harder to do up one-handed than it had been to open. "Uh, hang on," he said, and held his pants closed as he scooted off the bed and over to the door. He opened it awkwardly, stuck his head out, and must have seen an all-clear, because he sped off down the hallway. He was back in a moment with a handful of toilet paper which he handed to Ron, who gratefully scrubbed his hand clean. With his pants on again he felt a lot better about life.

"Thanks," he said, and Jonathan brightened.

"So, you wanna hang out until dinnertime?" he said, as wide-eyed and hopeful about having friends as he'd ever been, as if he hadn't just had his hand in Ron's pants.

"I've got homework," Ron said with a glance toward his backpack, "but we could work on it together." Their only shared class was Band (Ron played the trumpet and Jonathan played the French Horn), but they could always sit at the same table and do their separate hero and sidekick work. Ron had an essay for English class on Megalomaniacal Speech Structure and there were probably funny bits to quote for a study buddy. Or a sidekick. It was good to know that his sidekick appreciated his sense of humor already.

I've got a sidekick, Ron thought. I have to be a hero now.

* * *

Jonathan came running up late to the bus the next morning. Ron saw him barrelling down the street, legs pumping and backpack bouncing behind him, and held the bus by dint of just standing there on the lowest step until Jonathan reached them. Steve rolled his eyes and Jeremy the bus driver twitched his hand on the door controls warningly, but Jonathan beamed at him and Ron felt proud. No one was leaving his sidekick at the bus stop!

Steve tugged him down into the seat as soon as they lurched back to their usual spot. The bus took the corner hard and Ron saw, too late, that Jonathan hadn't made it to his seat yet; he slammed into the opposite row and Lance shoved him back so that he fell onto his seat instead of sitting in it. "Ow," he whined, rubbing his knee, but he seemed to be okay, so Ron turned back to Steve's insistent tugging.

"What did your parents say about it?" he hissed in Ron's ear.

"About what?" Ron said.

Steve shook Ron's arm. "About _Ichorman_ ," he said. "Come on, what have you heard?"

"Ichorman?" Ron said. "The same one who was buried alive, like, five years ago?"

" _Yes_ ," Steve said. "He's back. Your mom and dad didn't say anything? Don't you remember that my dad and yours were part of the team that stopped him last time?"

"Right, of course," Ron said. "Wait, back since when? No, they didn't tell me anything." Then again, Jonathan's parents had invited him for dinner and he hadn't come home until almost his bedtime. His parents hadn't said a word to him, not even about his being late, and he'd thought it was because they were still disappointed in him.

Ron's mom had been a plucky teenaged girl the first time Ichorman had made an appearance, and it was her exposure to his toxins that had given her the power to help his dad take the villain down. He got meaner and deadlier every time they fought him, though, and the last time it had taken a whole crew of Dad's old school chums (and Mom, of course) to hold him at bay until his slime factory had collapsed around him. Everyone had assumed, cautiously about a year or so later, that that had been the end of him.

"This is bad," Ron said.

"No shit," Steve said. He filled Ron in; Ichorman himself hadn't been seen, but two armored cars had been dissolved in what Steve's dad said that Ron's dad had said was a very characteristic pattern, and a bunch of minor villains (Steve didn't know which ones) had gone missing in the last three days.

"Sounds like a big attack," Jonathan said from over the edge of the seat.

"If only we knew _where_ ," Steve said.

"What would _we_ do?" Ron said. "We're still in high school."

"So was your mom, right, when she first got her powers?" Jonathan said.

"Ordinary high school," Ron said. "She didn't finish. Got an honorary degree from Sky High a couple of years later." One of her reasons for dropping out had been being pregnant with Ron, but she'd really wanted to shake off her old civilian life and run away to start afresh with Dad and his heroic connections. It must have been very romantic, Ron always thought wistfully.

"So we could absolutely save the world our senior year," Steve said. Fortunately the bus pulled up in front of the school before Ron had to figured out how to answer that, and they all piled out and headed to class.

* * *

Mr. Blade, the band teacher, stopped Ron before their fourth-period class could pull their folders and instrument cases out from the shelves. "Wilson," he said, "Mr. Teer wants to speak to you. Go on down to the main offices." He handed Ron a hall pass.

Ron clutched it in suddenly sweaty hands. From the brass section Jonathan was hopping up and down on his toes, beaming. Ron managed a smile for him and put his shoulders back to walk out of the classroom. The hallway was weirdly empty, just two frantic younger boys scrambling around the corner and into the science lab. Something exploded as the door slammed behind them and blue smoke began drifting out from under the jamb. The guidance counselor's office was all the way down at the other end of the school, and Ron wished he'd gone to ask Lori about sidekicks at lunch today instead of letting Steve distract him with the latest issue of Capes and Armaments (the new line of rocket boots was being roundly panned).

Mr. Teer looked up from his desk solemnly when Ron knocked at the open door. "Mr. Wilson," he said. "Please, come in and shut the door behind you."

Ron did, and he shoved the hall pass into his pocket and wiped his palms on his pants before sitting down. "Is this about the sidekick thing?"

Mr. Teer drummed his fingers on the papers stacked in front of him on his desk. "You've been expecting this, then?"

Ron bobbed his head. "It's kind of all everyone's been talking about this year."

That made Mr. Teer frown. "If you've been having trouble with your peers, Mr. Wilson, you should absolutely feel free to talk to Principal Powers. Or to me, of course. If my door is open you may always come in and talk."

"What?" Ron said. "What do you mean, trouble? Is there trouble about me getting a sidekick?" He scrubbed his hands across his thighs again and worried that Jonathan was in some sort of trouble.

"Oh," Mr. Teer said. "Oh, I see. Mr. Wilson, I'm very sorry, but that's not what I meant at all. You're not here to have a sidekick assigned to you."

"I'm not?" Ron said. "But I've been, I mean, why?"

Mr. Teer tapped his papers and then steepled his fingers, staring at Ron.

Stomach sinking, Ron said, "Am I in trouble?" Why would the _guidance counselor_ tell him he was in trouble? Wasn't that the principal's job?

"Mr. Wilson, you're a very bright young man," Mr. Teer said. "Your grades have been almost uniformly excellent. I'm afraid, however, that there is one area in which you have not been performing up to expectations."

"Gym class," Ron whispered.

Mr. Teer nodded. "You were passed through power placement and tracked at the highest level in anticipation of skills which, frankly, and I'm sorry to say, you have displayed not at all. I must ask you, young man: Do you have any powers?"

"There's still time," Ron said.

Mr. Teer shook his head. "Please answer yes or no, Mr. Wilson." He paused. "If you would prefer to have this conversation with Principal Powers -- I am trying to look out for your best interests, you know." He paused again. "Do you have any powers?"

"No," Ron said. "No, sir, I don't."

"I'm very sorry to hear that," Mr. Teer said. He sounded kind of sorry, but not really surprised. "You have to understand, frankly, we at Sky High are here to train heroes, Mr. Wilson. Heroes and their sidekicks. Heroes have heroic-level powers and, I'm sorry to say, you have not met this requirement." He smiled sympathetically. Ron thought that Mr. Teer would be a lot sorrier if Ron hit him with something. Maybe the stapler.

"Am I being expelled?" he asked.

"Oh, no! No, no, of course not, Mr. Wilson. But you have to understand, you see, that we cannot in good conscience graduate you from our hero program in this...condition. No, no." He tapped his fingers together. "But, of course, we do run _two_ programs here at Sky High." He paused. "Do you understand what I'm getting at, Mr. Wilson?"

Ron shook his head. He wasn't expelled but he couldn't graduate, so, what, was he being held back a year? Until he got powers? Forever? Would he be white-haired and still stuck in high school?

Mr. Teer sighed. "You are being transferred to our sidekick program, Mr. Wilson."

"What do you mean, transferred to?" Ron said.

Mr. Teer picked up one of his pieces of paper, handling it by the edges as he turned it around and placed it in front of Ron. "This is my suggested class schedule. There are several different options available to you, but frankly, I think this will suit you best."

Ron looked down. First period, Economics: Budgetting Your Hero. Second period, English: Sarcasm and Honorifics. Third period, Shop: Armor Repair. Lunch. Fourth period, Band. Fifth period wavered in front of his eyes and he made an awful choking noise.

"Take as long as you need," Mr. Teer said softly. He was shuffling the rest of the paperwork back and forth across his desk.

He pinched himself as hard as he could. He didn't wake up, and there was an answering throb of pain from underneath the bandages on his chest. "But I'm a hero," he said. "I have to be."

"Look at this as an opportunity for a new way to shine," Mr. Teer said.

"I don't _want_ a new way," Ron said, but it wasn't like he was being offered a choice, was it?

"Frankly, Mr. Wilson, that's not a very becoming attitude for a Sky High student," Mr. Teer said.

Steve probably would have punched the guy for all of this frankness. Then again, there always had been plenty of differences between Steve and Ron, hadn't there. This was just the final cut, hero from...from sidekick. "I feel kind of sick," Ron said.

Mr. Teer nodded. "Why don't you go lie down in the nurse's office for this period? I'll have Mr. Lad meet you there in a bit." Mr. Lad was Jonathan's homeroom teacher. Ron clapped his hand over his mouth as his stomach heaved again. Mr. Teer stood up and walked around his desk. "All right there?" he asked, patting Ron on the shoulder. "Go on then. It'll be okay."

Ron crumpled up the awful piece of paper in one fist and kept the other clamped over his mouth; he didn't even want to know what shade of green his face was turning. He knocked over the chair as he stood up, but he couldn't care. All of his caring was going toward his need for there to be no one in the hallway when he staggered out into it, and there wasn't. He stood there swaying for a moment, but without Mr. Teer staring at him he didn't feel like he was about to chuck up the lasagna from lunch. He shuffled down the hall to the nurse's office anyway, since he couldn't think of anything else to do.

Nurse Spex reminded him a lot of Jonathan's mom, even though she was a hero. Or \--

"Mrs. Spex," Ron said as she unfolded a blanket and stretched it out over the cot in the corner, "were you a hero?"

"Who, me?" she said. "Oh, heavens! No, I went to nursing school after I graduated. Took my adventures in jello trays!" She patted down a sadly flat pillow. "There you are, dear."

He sat down and unlaced his shoes. "But you _have_ powers," he said. "Were you, I mean, at school...?"

"Was I a hero student?" she said. "Oh my. No, I went right into the sidekick classes. Bit of a disappointment for my mum, you know; she probably would have been sidekick tracked herself if there'd been a school for girls in those days, but she was a real firecracker on her own. Lady Sparky, don't suppose anybody still talks about her."

"Actually they do," Ron said. "She was the suffragette heroine, wasn't she?"

"Bless you, child, as if there'd been only one!" Nurse Spex patted his hand. "Now I know you must be upset by this problem with your powers, but you can learn a lot in school if you just apply yourself."

"It's not a _problem_ with my powers," Ron said. "It's that I don't have any in the first place."

"None at all?" Nurse Spex said. She looked shocked. "But isn't your mother a hero too?"

"Yeah," Ron said. "Iron Lass. Fists of iron."

"Sounds like a toxic waste accident to me," Nurse Spex said, and Ron nodded. "But your father's a legacy hero? Could be they interferred."

Ron sighed. "It's never happened to anyone else, has it? Just me."

"I certainly don't know about the details," she said, "but every now and then you do get a, well. A child of two superpowered parents who doesn't show any powers himself."

"A dud," Ron said. She patted his hand again. "My dad's gonna kill me."

"He did have a temper, didn't he," she said. Ron slumped down on the cot and rolled onto his stomach. "I'll just let you rest up for that, than." And she left him alone.

* * *

People were pretty much patting him sympathetically and leaving him alone all afternoon. His parents came and got him from school: two sympathetic pats from Principal Powers, one (and a mint) from his secretary, and a sort of half-a-pat from his mother before she shooed him upstairs with a warning not to try and talk with his father just yet. Dad was red in the face and snarling at nothing so Ron didn't really need the warning, but he appreciated the fact that she'd spoken to him. The silence from downstairs was ominous and he couldn't really nap. He skipped dinner without getting any comment.

Habit pulled him out of bed in the morning and had him halfway to the bathroom before he realized that he'd been sleeping fully clothed on top of the blankets. A shower sounded like the best thing in the world, though, so he went through his morning routine on autopilot. Once he was dressed, he reached automatically for his backpack and found the crumpled schedule on top of it. He grimaced, shoved it in a side pocket, and stomped sullenly down the stairs. His father didn't look up from the breakfast table, and his mother glanced at him and then down at her toast. Neither one of them said a word, so Ron kept walking right out of the house.

He wound up at the bus stop for lack of anywhere else to go, far too early for the bus. "This sucks," he said, and he kicked the stop sign on the corner. He caught his big toe right against the edge and hopped backwards, wincing, and then tripped over the curb and sat down heavily. "This _sucks_ ," he said again. The dew on the grass soaked through his pants.

He fished out his new schedule. The only thing that had stayed the same was Band; everything else was a sidekick-only class except for History, which was listed as Interplanetary Politics and had to be a mistake. He'd taken Interplanetary Politics last year. And Mr. Lad, who had never shown up yesterday, was his homeroom teacher. Jonathan had never said anything about whether he liked Mr. Lad or not, which meant that either he was horribly boring or else the sidekick's homeroom teachers didn't pay much attention to their classes. Mrs. Glass, Ron's hero-track homeroom teacher, had always had time to talk to Ron and Steve and the other hero kids. Maybe he could ask her for help.

From down the street he could see Steve in his bright blue shirt. Before he knew what he was doing, he was bolting the other way and ducking behind the Parkers' house. He crouched next to their rhododendrons and panted for breath. He could not talk to Steve. Not yet. Just...not yet. And then Jonathan came bounding down the street from the other direction and Ron bit his lip hard enough to draw blood. Jonathan and Steve were talking and Steve was laughing and what if they were talking about him? He stayed in the bushes until the bus was pulling up and then ran to get on. Jonathan actually had to hold the doors for him this time, and he beamed up at Ron.

Ron pushed past him and took his seat next to Becky. Jonathan gaped at him for a minute and then sat down next to Steve. "Hey," Steve said. Ron pretended to be fascinated by the left shoulder strap of his backpack. Steve leaned over the back of the seat and poked him hard enough to bruise. Ron bit his lip again and ignored him. By the time they finally reached the school he was sure his arms were going to be entirely black and blue, and Steve stormed off the bus in an angry huff. Jonathan looked from him to Steve and back again, fidgetting with his own backpack.

"What's going on?" he blurted.

"Let's just get to class, okay?" Ron said.

Jonathan's face lit up, probably because Ron was speaking to him. "Can we talk at lunch? What did the guidance counselor say? Did you talk about you-know-what?"

Ron shook his head.

Jonathan sighed. "Hero stuff. Okay, fine, that's cool." He stared at Ron for a few more seconds and then turned and headed for his homeroom. Ron followed slowly. Jonathan paused and waved at the junction where Ron would normally turn left to head toward Mrs. Glass' homeroom, but Ron just set his jaw and stood there. Jonathan blinked and shrugged, and Barron walked by and oh-so-accidentally slammed his shoulder into Ron on his way left.

"Got in some trouble there, Wilson?" Barron said. His grin was nasty and knowing. "Called into the principal's office, huh? What'd you do, get in a fight? Oh, wait, you can't!" He blew a mocking kiss at them and ignited it with a snap of his fingers.

"Eeeeew," Jonathan said as Barron sauntered away. "Sulphur breath." He followed the sidekick crowds heading right, twisting around a couple of times to watch Ron following him but clearly reining himself in from asking any more questions.

Mr. Lad was tall and scrawny and dressed all in black like he wanted to be a poet. Even first thing in the morning Ron could see streaks of chalk dust on his elbows where he kept bumping into the blackboard. "Ah, Mr. Wilson," he said, waving Ron in from the doorway. Jonathan sat at a desk in the front row and stared openly. "Come in, come in," Mr. Lad said. "Yes, Mr. Teer already spoke to me. You'll have a lot of catching up to do, but we can talk about that when we're not holding up class time. Stay back from lunch, please, and we'll go over your new schedule then. If you don't have any questions," he added, his tone making it clear -- in case the angle at which he was looking down his nose didn't -- that any questions Ron had were probably stupid and not worth answering.

Teachers didn't speak to Ron like that. Ron was smart and his parents were powerful. And none of that was worth a damn if Ron was just a sidekick, apparently. He shook his head.

"Then sit down," Mr. Lad said impatiently.

Jonathan reached out and snagged Ron's sleeve. "Ron!" he hissed.

No one seemed to be hovering over the desk next to Jonathan's, so Ron sat down at it and handed over his new schedule.

Jonathan smoothed it out and brushed the dirt off. "Whose schedule is this?" he said.

"Mine," Ron said.

He watched Jonathan get it. "Oh," Jonathan said. "Oh. Oh! Ron, they can't!"

"They already did," Ron said, and Mr. Lad rapped on his desk and called them to order.

* * *

Sidekick classes sucked as much as Ron had thought they would, especially since Jonathan kept slipping him notes.

BUT YOUR A HERO, said the first one.

SUPERHEROES NEED SUPERPOWERS, Ron scribbled on the back of it before tossing it back.

YOU WILL, said the next note. "WILL" was underlined several times. Four more notes, varying underlining with multiple exclamation points, kept up this theme.

Between periods, Ron managed to catch Jonathan long enough to whisper, "They're not going to wait any more. It was this or kick me out, I think."

"No!" Jonathan said, too loudly, and they were separated for Shop. Ron knew all of this stuff anyway -- his dad had a full smithy in the basement (cleverly ventilated into the sewage pipes) -- and the sidekicks around him just glared when he tried to talk to them about what they were doing wrong, so he shut up and concentrated on repairing chainmail, which he could do and often had done in his sleep.

Then it was lunch, and Ron endured Mr. Lad's supercilious attitude to ask about History. Apparently sidekicks took certain classes a year behind the heroes, which explained who all of those strange kids in those classes had been, but when Ron pointed out that he'd already taken Interplanetary History he'd just gotten a sniff and a sharp "not as a _sidekick_ " from Mr. Lad. He didn't feel like arguing about it. It hadn't been a bad class, after all, not like Ancient Cultures where they spent three whole weeks on Atlantis. Atlantis was _so_ overdone, but Saturn never got boring.

He dashed down the hall to get to the cafeteria and went flying through the doorway to hit the floor hard. The nearby tables exploded into laughter. Steve helped him up, and from the way he was glaring at Barron either that was who had tripped him or Steve and Barron had been in the middle of another fight and he'd interrupted it. "You okay?" Steve asked.

"Aw, isn't that cute!" said Barron. "Is this your new sidekick, Stronghold?"

"Ron, what the hell is going on?" Steve said.

"I got transferred," Ron mumbled.

"What?" Steve said.

"I got transferred," Ron said. Everybody was watching them eagerly. "I got TRANSFERRED, okay!" he said to the room at large. "To the SIDEKICK classes. HAPPY NOW?"

There was a small stunned silence and then everyone started whispering and laughing at once. Steve shook his arm until his head rattled, which kept him from hearing what all the buzzing voices in the cafeteria were saying. "What the hell?" he said again, and towed Ron over to a table by the windows. Jonathan met them there, oblivious as usual to Steve's scowl. "Ron," Steve said, "come on. This isn't funny. Where have you been all day?"

"He's been in sidekick class," Jonathan said. "The stupid principal thinks Ron's not a hero."

"Can they do that?" Steve said, eyes wide. He dropped Ron's arm.

"It's not contagious, Steve," Ron said. "No one's questioning that you're a hero."

"But your dad," Steve said.

"What did he say?" Jonathan asked in a hushed voice.

"He didn't say anything," Ron said. "He wouldn't even look at me."

"This really sucks," Jonathan said.

There wasn't much to say to that. Ron was hungry but couldn't face the line, so he just stole a few of Jonathan's potato chips and stared out the window. The cafeteria faced the edge of the cliff, and sometimes birds flew by.

* * *

Sixth period was gym class. Five of Barron's friends piled onto Ron and Jonathan and knocked them down while Steve was on the other side of the room. Ron managed to bloody Kenny's nose, but the pain in his chest was sharp enough that he was pretty sure he was bleeding under the bandages and it felt like every bruise that Steve had given him this morning had just been tripled. Also, Jonathan was limping and Ron hadn't been able to stop it. One of the other sidekicks helped Jonathan up afterward, but nobody offered Ron a hand.

Jonathan was called out of History by Mr. Lad, so Ron was left by himself to explain the situation to Mr. Atus, who was not at all amused to have his best student (Ron hoped) back to repeat the class. He promised to speak to Mr. Teer about it. Jonathan came back fifteen minutes later looking more freaked out that Ron had ever seen him, even the time they had accidentally rolled Ron's dad's car into the pool. They were two desks apart, though, and Becky absolutely refused to pass notes for them.

Ron grabbed Jonathan as soon as the bell rang. "Are you okay?" he asked.

One of the sidekicks -- Michael or Marco or something -- sneered at them from the next desk over. "Oh yeah, the hero's come to take care of us now," he said.

"I'm not a hero," Ron said, shoulders hunching.

"Shut up, Mark," Jonathan added.

"Go ahead, suck up to the heeeeeero," Mark said. "Thinks he can show us all up, doesn't he, dropping in senior year like we've had three years of nothing."

"What?" Ron said, baffled.

Mark snarled at him with a brief flash of actual fang. "It's not fucking easy to be a sidekick," he said. "I don't think you can do it."

"Just because I don't have the powers for the hero track--"

"You think this is _easier_?" Mark said. "Let me tell you something, _hero_ , it's the sidekicks who do all the real work that you take credit for. You think you know what work is?"

"I didn't pick this," Ron said. "This isn't my fault!"

"Whiner," Mark spat. He threw his books into his backpack angrily.

"What -- okay, never mind," Ron said. "You never said what happened to you."

Jonathan stared at the floor. "They tried to assign me to Steve." Ron frowned, confused all over again. "As my hero. They want me to be Steve's sidekick."

"You," Ron said, "but, I thought you were, I mean," and he stuttered to a halt. Jonathan couldn't be _his_ sidekick. Ron _was_ a sidekick. And it made sense, really.

"I said no," Jonathan said. "I told them I was going to be your sidekick."

"Jonathan," Ron said miserably, "you can't be my sidekick."

"You are too a hero," Jonathan said loudly. Mark laughed, and a lot of the sidekicks were staring. "You're a hero and you need a sidekick." He grabbed Ron's arm. "I told them I was going to be your sidekick."

Ron tried to shake Jonathan off. "Yeah?" he said. "Did they laugh?" Jonathan flushed. "Jonathan, you can't refuse a hero assignment. You're a great sidekick. Steve's lucky to get you." And Ron was going to punch Steve's lights out, powers or no powers, if he didn't treat Jonathan right.

Jonathan clung tighter and stared into Ron's eyes. "Ron, I want _you_. I _want_ you!"

"Let go," Ron said. He shook his arm again. Jonathan's fingers dug into all of his bruises. "Let go!" Ron said. "Let me go, dammit! I'm not your hero. I'm never going to be your hero so why don't you just leave me alone!"

In the dead silence that followed, Jonathan slowly released Ron's arm. His face was white. "Right," he said softly. "Right, okay, sorry to bother you. It won't happen again."

Ron backed up until he slammed his hip into the next desk over. One more bruise for his collection, and he grabbed his books and his bag and bolted for the door.

Nobody sat next to him on the bus ride home. Three freshmen were tripled up in the front to leave him in a seat alone.

When he got home, his parents weren't there. He went into the back and hit the heavy punching bag until blood was running down his chest and his arms were a solid mass of pain. It was the last time he threw a punch for almost thirty years.

* * *

Part Two: October 2005 via October 1977

* * *

When Ron started at Sky High, the school perched on the edge of a cliff above the city, protected from villains by a series of cunning tunnels. His senior year, those tunnels proved not cunning enough.

Foul-smelling smoke billowed down the hallways as students ran screaming from or towards where they thought the danger was. Ron remembered that stench from when he was four and his parents' hostage to Ichorman, and he remember how his mother had torn down the wall and put her fist right through Ichorman's lieutenant while his father had run to cut Ron down and get him to safety on top of a wall. He'd stuck his fingers in his mouth and watched in awe as his parents saved the day.

His parents were here this time too, somewhere in the smoke, but he couldn't find them. Ichorman had attacked the school itself and the floor kept leaping underfoot to the sound of explosions. Ron had been following the worst of the smell, on the theory that disgusting odors meant Ichorman and Ichorman meant his parents, but now he was following Steve. Steve was heaving crumbled walls aside like he knew where he was going. (Ron was emphatically not following Jonathan, who was two paces behind Steve at all times.)

It was a truly terrible smell. It was the smell that Ron recalled most vividly afterward, but that was all right. Smells were better than other things he could dwell on, like watching Jonathan tackle Steve to the ground seconds before the science labs exploded and sent jagged shrapnel through the hallways where they'd been running. There wasn't that much metal in the labs; that had been a bomb, and the roof was collapsing.

Steve could stop a collapsing roof.

He couldn't do anything about the pieces of Ron's dad that fell through the hole torn in the wall, though. One-two-three, head, torso, and legs, and Ron could hear his mother screaming on the other side of the wall.

If there was blood, it was lost in the soot and ash of the bomb. There probably was blood.

People told Ron, later on, that he'd made it all the way into the lab behind Steve and Jonathan, that he'd been kneeling next to most of his father when the smoke started clearing, choking on all that smoke too hard to say anything for days. Steve had thrown a desk at Ichorman and distracted him long enough for Ron's mom to get her hands free and start throwing punches.

He'd seen pictures of Ichorman at the trial. They didn't make him remember anything except training with Mom in the old studio; it was easy to picture the pattern of blows that would have shattered those particular bones.

Mostly he remembered the smell, though. It always made him think of his father's funeral, although it would have been long gone by then and replaced with an overabundance of lilies, and of the way people kept coming up to shake his mother's hand and pat his shoulder sympathetically. It was the smell that warned him as soon as he popped open the bus doors to stretch his legs.

This was a field trip that the freshmen took every year, rotating though the various Acme factories around the city, and Mr. Boy (Jonathan) (the Hero Support homeroom teacher) and Mr. Mancer (the Hero homeroom teacher) had taken the kids inside almost an hour ago. Ron waited with the bus in the parking lot. He didn't mind; it was a warm sunny day and this field trip had bored him silly when he was in school.

It was just a faint whiff, gone as soon as the breeze died down, but Ron didn't even think to question it. He was out of the bus and running for the front gates, slapping his pockets to make sure he still had the bus keys only when he was halfway across the parking lot.

"It's not a part of his power," Ron's mother had said, waving her cigarette at Ron. She hadn't smoked before his father died. "It's something he mixes up. It works _with_ his power to make him stronger."

"Does it always smell like that?" Ron had asked.

"I washed for days," she had told him. "Days, scrubbing and scrubbing with my skin mutating under the soap and flaking off in rotting strips. I came up all iron that first morning but even the metal skin stank of that ichor." She shuddered. "I thought I was going to smell like that for the rest of my life. I thought that would be the price of my powers, too." She sniffed at her arms where Ron could see the bare skin still scoured red; it was ten days after the funeral. "It's not, though. There's nothing wrong with me. Nothing."

She'd still smelled like artificial flowers then, still wearing the perfumes that Dad had given her for every holiday occasion. These days she smelled mostly of stale cigarettes and cheaper perfumes. He saw her before he smelled that, though; she was standing in front of the front gates as he ran up. Her fist was in the air reflecting the sunlight threateningly. "I know he's in there!" she was yelling. The breeze picked up again, flaring the Iron Lady cape out behind his mother and washing them both with the telltale stench again.

"Let her in," Ron told the guards.

"Who the hell are you?" the guy on the left said.

"Ron Wilson," Ron said automatically, and then filled in the usual cover story: "I'm the driver for the tour group from Northside High School." He shook his head. "But the point is, _she_ ," he pointed at his mother, "is the Iron Lady, and if she says there's trouble then you'd better believe that there's trouble afoot."

The guard looked dubiously at Ron's mother, who was draped in shimmering mesh so fine that it looked like some rave kid's lost sweater. Ron's mother looked even more dubiously back at the Acme Factories' rent-a-cop and then hauled back and slammed her fist through the locking mechanism on the gates. The lock shattered, the guard on the right grabbed Mr. Dubious and ducked behind the plexiglass of their booth, and Ron pointed toward the side entrance. "Over there, I think," he said.

His mother gave him a narrow-lipped glare and then grabbed his wrist. "You're coming with me," she said, and took off at a dead run. She might be over sixty and a chain smoker, but Ron was the one wheezing and clutching at the wall when they reached the lobby. Without releasing Ron's wrist, she flung open the doors, shouted at the receptionist to sound the alarm, and barrelled through onto the factory floor.

"Hard hats," Ron panted, waving one hand toward the safety posters.

"Don't be stupid," his mom snarled.

"How did Ichorman get loose again?" Ron said. Alarms were blaring and workers were scattering out side exits.

His mom slowed long enough to turn and look at him. "This is our _chance_ , son. I never should have handed him over last time."

Ron dug in his heels. "Mom. Mom! You can't kill him!"

"Don't be stupid," she said again. "We should have thought of this a long time ago. If your father hadn't been so hidebound, so stuck on his stupid traditions--"

"Mom!" Ron said, stumbling forward as she tugged. "You can't!"

A perfectly sinister cackle echoed around them. "Oh, but it will be so much fun watching you _try_ , Irene," said the figure who stepped into the spotlight on the catwalk above them. His dramatic timing was intimidatingly perfect.

"I'd know that smell anywhere," his mother accused, hands on her hips as she glared upward. "Haven't you rotted away yet?"

Ichorman smirked. Under the oily sheen he looked no older than he had thirty years ago, although one cheekbone was definitely crooked. "Come to rescue more schoolchildren?" he asked. "Or be rescued by them?" One hand waved lazily across the aisle and a fan kicked in above them, blowing away the miasma until they could see a flailing teenager suspended over a vat of -- well, it was labelled 'green #18', but Ron had a suspicion that it had been doctored up. The kid was kicking and glowing frantically, and behind them in a huge cage (where had he gotten a cage?) were the rest of the kids and the two teachers.

"He's on my bus," Ron said indignantly. "Hey! That kid's on my bus!"

"Shh!" Mom said.

Through the bars of the cage Ron could see Steve's son shifting back and forth. Mr. Boy had his hand on the kid's shoulder -- of course, Jonathan would step right up as the next Stronghold sidekick, wouldn't he? Ron _liked_ Will, so he tried to ignore the unexpectedly bitter taste of that. Will had been a great hero even when he was a sidekick. Between Mom and Will and Jonathan, no one was going to end up sliced into thirds today, and that was the important thing.

Ichorman held up a remote control. "Careful, careful!" he called mockingly. "Wouldn't want me to let the boy go, would you? You know what this mixture is capable of, Irene."

Ron's mom took a deep breath. "Oh yes," she said, and Ron could hear that she had a plan now. "Oh yes, I remember this one in particular. Back to the classics, eh?"

Ichorman cackled again. "They worked, didn't they? I'm too old to get fancy these days. Just once more and I can retire in the peace and prosperity," his voice was rising in anger, "that I so richly deserve and which you have continually denied to me!"

Ron's mom pushed him to the side. "Release mechanism is on the top of the vat," she said. "Go."

Him? Ron Wilson? But everyone else was still in that cage, and Will was strong enough to break out but probably not fast enough to grab his friend before he fell. And after all, it had been the sidekicks who had saved the day -- some of the day, at any rate -- when Royal Pain had tried to kidnap the school a few weeks ago. Ron backed slowly away. His mom would be fine; she knew what she was doing. No one was going to get hurt, no matter how bad the smell was.

Tolman, that was the kid's name. Zach Tolman. "Psst, Zach," Ron said. He could hear his mother and Ichorman continuing to exchange insults; it sounded like Mom could wind this villain up until he forgot about his hostages. Zach spun slowly, upsidedown in several loops of heavy chain, until he could see Ron climbing over the edge of the vat. It was steaming slightly, and the smell made it hard to breathe.

"Mmmm mm mph mm!" Zach yelled through the gag tied around his head.

Ron couldn't see anything that looked like a release mechanism. He glanced over his shoulder at the cage. He couldn't see Will in the crowd of captives any more, so perhaps help was on the way! Jonathan was waving and pointing downward; Ron peered in that direction, but there was no sign of Will. He could, however, see the giant hooks that were used to lower things into the vats, and the three hanging closest were indeed a lovely shade of green that was undoubtably #18. It wasn't anything like the color of whatever was bubbling in there now. Ron picked up one of the hooks, braced one knee on either side of the vat edge, and snagged the chain holding Zach. It was easy enough to haul the kid close enough to grab him, but he dropped the hook into the vat as he did it.

There was a shriek of rage and all of the chains looped around Zach suddenly whipped free. With a grunt, Ron tossed him over the edge of the vat toward the relatively safe floor, but Zach didn't even hit; Will swooped in and caught him in midair. Ron grinned, victorious, and started to wobble. The fumes from the sludge bubbling in the vat were strangling him, filling his mouth up with the taste of blood, and as he watched in fascination the bubbles grew larger, each one swelling up and popping on the surface with a burst of malevolence....

And a hard yank on the back of his trousers pulled him away. He fell into cleaner air and landed twenty feet down with a clang.

Clang?

He looked down. He'd landed on top of Jonathan, who had obviously pulled him off of the vat with another of the long hooked poles. Fortunately the pole had fallen sideways onto the floor instead of impaling him on the way down. His left knee hurt a little, but Jonathan must have broken most of his fall. He peeled himself off of Jonathan's (still muscular) supine body. "Are you hurt?" he said.

Jonathan shook his head. "Just...knocked the breath...outta me," he wheezed. When Ron offered him a hand, Jonathan took it and let Ron pull him up. "How about you?"

It was the closest they'd stood since they were students, and probably the longest conversation they'd had. Ron blinked. "What about me?"

"You hurt?" Jonathan asked. He reached out and dusted off Ron's shirt.

"No, I'm just fine," Ron said, and realized with surprise that it seemed to be true. "What about Tolman?"

"Zach? Will caught him. They went to help your mom chase the bad guy down."

"It's Ichorman," Ron said.

"Yeah, I know," Jonathan said. He still had his hands on Ron's shoulders. "Are you sure you're okay?"

Ron took a step back. "You should be helping Stronghold," he said.

"Steve? He's here with your mom?" Jonathan said.

"Will," Ron clarified.

"Oh, Will!" Jonathan said. "He's a tough kid. Are you going to go help?"

"No," said a nasty voice, and something slime-coated and horrible dropped down onto Ron's back. "He's going to stay right here," Ichorman hissed, wrapping wiry arms around Ron's neck and squeezing.

Jonathan's fist shot past Ron's cheek too fast to see, but Ichorman just laughed. "Too slow this time, boy," he said. "And you! Looks like Irene's bouncing baby is all grown up. Do you remember your uncle Ichor, Ronnie?"

Something oozed down the side of Ron's neck. He was kind of grateful not to be able to smell it, but he struggled anyway, trying to get Ichorman's arm loose enough to take a breath.

"You're choking him!" Jonathan said.

The arm around Ron's throat eased up the slightest bit, and Ron inhaled a lungful of what was not even remotely the sweetest air he'd ever tasted. In fact, now he was choking on the stench.

"Come on, Ronnie," Ichorman said. "We're going to walk on over to the center of the room and show everyone just what I've been working on."

Ron had just enough give under his chin to nod.

"Good kid," Ichorman said, but he'd forgotten something: Ron was his hostage against Jonathan doing anything heroic, but he didn't have any hostages against Ron doing anything stupid, such as dropping one shoulder as he turned and slamming Ichorman's head into the side of the green #18 vat.

Ichorman's hold loosened enough for Ron to twist free and punch him once in the face, but his fist glanced off of the slime on Ichorman's jaw and slammed into the side of the vat, which crumpled alarmingly. If the slime was eating through the vat, they all needed to get out of there immediately. "Jonathan, run!" he shouted, but Jonathan was scrambling closer to the vat -- trying to get to the hooked pole, Ron saw. "Run!" he yelled again, finding a scrap of metal on the floor. He threw it wildly at Ichorman as the villain ran towards whatever he had in the room's center; to his amazement, it hit Ichorman's temple solidly and dropped him like a stone.

Ron wasted a second gawping, but then he flung himself down on top of Ichorman and pinned him to the floor. It was like trying to hold onto a greased zucchini, but Ichorman didn't fight. He groaned a little weakly, and Jonathan hurried over with the chains that Ichorman had been using to hang Tolman over the vat and handed them to Ron, who wrapped Ichorman up in what he hoped was a secure fashion; it had been a long time since high school and he hadn't had much call for Ropes and Restraints in his odd jobs since.

"What did you hit him with?" Jonathan said, and Ron picked up the scrap of metal, only to have it fall limp in his hand. "What's -- that's the gag! How did you hit him with that?"

Ron blinked and shook the decidedly cloth gag. It shook, and then it snapped out into a sharp throwing-star shape, fell limp again, crumbled into a hard metallic ball, and fell limp a final time. Ron dropped it as though it had burned him. "What the hell is that?" he said. "Some new secret weapon?"

Jonathan picked it up gingerly. "It looks like a sock," he said, and he shook it cautiously. Nothing happened. He offered it to Ron, but as soon as Ron's fingers closed around the heel it went rigid again. Ron flinched back and it clanged to the floor, a flattened sculpture of a sock. Jonathan said, quietly, "Ron."

"What," Ron said, staring at the sock.

"Try this one," Jonathan said, and handed him another piece of cloth. This also stiffened as Ron held it.

"What is it made of?" Ron said. "Do you think it's dangerous?" When Jonathan didn't say anything, he looked up. Jonathan's face -- "What?" Ron said.

"Ron, that's my old mask," Jonathan said. Ron's hand shook, and the thing relaxed back into something he recognized all too well. "It's not the cloth. It's you."

Ron sat down hard on the cold floor. He looked back up at the vat; it wasn't crumbling at all, but it had a clear fist-print in the side. "Well," he said. "Toxic waste. That's just great."

Ichorman grunted and started kicking. Ron took Jonathan's mask, flicked it metallic and long, and thumped Ichorman over the head again. He flopped over quietly.

Jonathan sat down next to him, keeping one eye on Ichorman from behind Ron's bulk. "You don't sound very excited."

"How'd he get out of prison?" Ron said. "This time he was really secure."

Jonathan shook his head. "These things happen."

"And Mom knew right where he was going," Ron continued. "And I just happened to be here. And Mom just happened to come up with a great new plan."

Jonathan looked up and down, but nobody was hovering behind them. "She wouldn't," he whispered, but it was half-hearted.

"Her vindication at last," Ron said. He stood up and cupped his hands around his mouth. "Mom!" he called. "Will Stronghold! Mr. Mancer! Over here!"

Will, flying with Ron's mom in carry-along, swooped down. "Are you -- hey! You caught him!"

Ron's mom dropped lightly to the ground and beamed. "Oh, Ron, you did it!" she said. She grabbed his shoulders and looked him up and down. Ron didn't say anything. She faltered just a fraction, a tiny, horrible, revealing fraction, and then snapped her smile back into place. Ron kept on not saying anything, and she patted his chest and stepped back. It didn't look like Will had noticed anything, but he was a good kid; Ron didn't think he'd say anything if he did have suspicions.

Jonathan clapped his hands together. "Well, let's get this evil-doer handed over to the proper authority and make sure no one's hurt!" he said brightly, and he smoothly and easily took over the scene. That was good sidekick training, Ron knew.

* * *

Ron pulled up in front of Jonathan's apartment. In the passenger seat, Jonathan rubbed his hands together and said, "Thanks for the lift home."

"Sure," Ron said. "It was kind of my fault that it's too late for the trains." It was well into evening; there was probably some sort of transportation running since it was Friday night, but Jonathan had leapt at Ron's offer of a lift home.

He'd chuckled a little settling into the bus seat behind Ron on the way back from the school, rocket boots slung over his shoulder, and said, "Been a long time since I rode the bus home with you."

"Yeah," Ron had said, and done his best not to run into any cell phone towers showing off on his way to the ground parking lot. (It was only one really close shave.) He couldn't think of anything to say, so he'd acted like he was concentrating on his driving, and then worried that Jonathan would think he wasn't a good driver if he made it look like he was working too hard, and then worried that just being near Jonathan was launching him right back to teenaged angst all over again.

In front of Jonathan's apartment (was it as nice inside as the neighborhood looked? Ron wasn't familiar with the area), Jonathan fidgetted a little more and finally said, "That wasn't exactly...how I'd pictured it."

"Pictured what?" Ron said.

"You getting your powers at last. Saving the day. Letting me help," Jonathan said.

"Letting you help?" Ron said. "You saved my life, Jonathan."

"Pfft," Jonathan said. "It's what hero support does. You're the one who stopped him."

"Why do you always," Ron started, and then shook his head. It wasn't like he didn't secretly want to be Jonathan's hero still. "How did you picture it?" he said instead.

"Hah," Jonathan said. "Well. There was more of the, you know, sweeping me off of my feet in the passion of the moment."

"More of the...." Ron bit his lip and stared at the side of Jonathan's head.

Jonathan coughed. "More than," he waved his hand, "none."

"And," Ron said, "maybe some declaration that I'd been pining for you all this time?"

"Yeah," Jonathan said. "That too. Well! Thanks for the lift." He tugged at the seatbelt and fumbled with the buckle.

"I have," Ron said.

"Have what?" Jonathan asked.

"Been pining. A bit." Ron looked down and then back. "A lot. I mean, some."

"You dumped me for _Mark Weatherby_ ," Jonathan said.

Ron winced. Getting involved with Mark More-Sidekick-Than-Thou Weatherby certainly hadn't been the biggest mistake of his senior year, but that was only because it had been a year with catastrophic mistakes in it before he'd made it through September. "I don't think it counts as dumping if we were never actually dating," he said weakly.

"You _said_ I'd be your sidekick," Jonathan said. "And then you _dumped_ me."

"You pined over Josie Stronghold," Ron accused.

Jonathan snorted. "Of course I did. It's practically in the manual. Hero gets the girl, sidekick pines politely."

"I don't like that part of the manual," Ron muttered.

"There are other parts," Jonathan said. Like 'hero gets the sidekick', he didn't say. They still frowned on that section at Sky High, as if that stopped anyone.

"So," Ron said, "can I get a second chance?"

Jonathan smiled and Ron blinked helplessly at him, suddenly reminded of all of the _best_ parts of his teenaged years. "Want to come up for coffee?" he asked.

Ron did.

 


End file.
